


Sins that We've Become

by tocourtdisaster



Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Community: jim_and_bones, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-14
Updated: 2011-05-14
Packaged: 2017-10-19 10:13:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/199723
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tocourtdisaster/pseuds/tocourtdisaster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Leonard McCoy meets Jim Kirk on a Thursday and his entire life changes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sins that We've Become

**Author's Note:**

> Fusion with Forever Knight, written for [](http://jim-and-bones.livejournal.com/profile)[**jim_and_bones**](http://jim-and-bones.livejournal.com/)'s [Vampire Weekend Challenge](http://jim-and-bones.livejournal.com/406399.html). Title from "Please Don't Go" by William Fitzsimmons.
> 
> A million thanks to [](http://caitri.livejournal.com/profile)[**caitri**](http://caitri.livejournal.com/) and [](http://gadgetorious.livejournal.com/profile)[**gadgetorious**](http://gadgetorious.livejournal.com/) for talking parts of this over with me and for helping to make this better than it would have been otherwise.  <3

  
Leonard McCoy meets Jim Kirk on a Thursday night; no, wait, it's already Friday morning when they meet and 'meet' probably isn't the best word to be using since Leonard sees Jim for the first time when he unzips the newly delivered body bag that's occupying his primary autopsy table.

He whistles through his teeth when he finally lays eyes on what he's been hearing about for the past half hour: some nameless hero who got in the middle of a gang war to save some kids and ended up getting turned into Swiss cheese for his trouble.

Though, honestly, from what Leonard's been hearing through the grapevine tonight, he'd expected to see more damage, especially to the guy's face. Geoff had said when he brought him in that the guy was damn near unrecognizable as a person, but Leonard's not having any trouble seeing that this guy was a good-looking kid.

 _Whatever,_ Leonard thinks. Geoff's always been prone to exaggeration.

He flicks the flap of the bag back over the guy's face and double checks that the body's properly tagged and then sits at his desk to finish his dinner before he starts the workup on his newest guest.

He's almost done with his chicken salad sandwich when he hears a rustling noise, the sound of a vinyl body bag brushing against a stainless steel autopsy table, of feet on the tile floor.

"Hey, who's there?" Leonard calls, wrapping up what's left of his sandwich and sticking it in the cooler next to the blood samples from John Doe #13479. There's no answer, but Leonard can hear faltering footsteps, almost like a limp. "I can hear you, you know."

There's a pause in the steps as Leonard makes his way around the dividing wall that's all that differentiates his 'office' from the rest of the morgue. His eyes go first to the empty body bag on the autopsy table and then to the man standing on the other side of the table, half turned towards the door.

"What the fuck?" is all that Leonard's able to get out before the guy who was until two minutes ago occupying the body bag turns, his eyes flashing yellow, and says, "You won't remember any of this."

"Bullshit," Leonard says and the guy is obviously surprised; his freakishly yellow eyes widen and his jaw drops open, revealing sharpened incisors.

"Why didn't that work?" he asks. The question's directed at Leonard, which is weird because Leonard has _no idea_ what's going on or what it is that didn't work. "What's so special about you?"

"Would you care to tell me how the hell it is you're not still dead?" Leonard asks, doing what he does best and pushing all the other crap to the side and focusing on what he can possibly, maybe make sense of.

The guy laughs, his eyes fading to a blue that's almost as startling as the yellow had been. "That's a question I've been asking myself for centuries, doc," he says and somehow, Leonard knows he's telling the truth, no matter how improbable it might seem.

"You're immortal," Leonard says, taking a step forward. The guy takes a step back and Leonard takes the hint. "How?"

"That information isn't exactly something we share with just anyone, you know," the guys says, taking another step towards the door. Leonard stays where he is and the guy nods in approval. "It's for the best if you forget all about this, you know."

"And what am I supposed to put in my report?" Leonard asks, watching as the guy takes another step towards the door, steadier than the last. "Should I say that my DB just disappeared or that aliens came down and took the body away?"

"Say whatever you'd like," the guy says, "but, seriously, forget I was ever here."

 _Easier said than done,_ Leonard thinks, but what he says is, "Fine."

The guy nods his head again and then he's at the door and out in the hall. Leonard scrambles after him, but by the time he reaches the door, the guy's long gone.

  


\------

  
Less than twenty-four hours later, the not-dead guy comes back, this time with Captain Pike in tow, and is introduced as Jim Kirk, the newest detective on the squad, and Leonard _knows_ that his life has just become about a thousand times more complicated than it was before.

He just wishes it had taken a bit longer for it all go to hell in a handbasket.

  


\------

  
"I swear to god, Jim, if I find nothing but blood in your fridge, I'm gonna kick your ass," Leonard says, wedging his phone between his ear and shoulder and punching in the security code to Jim's building and then heaving the door open. "The protein supplements only work if you _drink them_."

"Yes, I know that." Jim's voice is tinny and distant and Leonard imagines him sitting on the floor in front of the couch, his cell phone on the table where he always tosses it after turning on the speaker phone. "I just can't force myself to ingest that swill, Bones."

"Well, you're gonna have to learn if you ever wanna regain your mortality," Leonard says, punching the button for Jim's loft.

"I don't think protein supplements are the way to go, Bones," Jim says and Leonard does his best to suppress a sigh. This is an old argument and not one that he particularly wants to rehash right now.

"You won't know until you try, Jim," Leonard says as the elevator comes to a halt. He ends the call and heaves open the door and almost immediately has a heart attack.

Jim is sitting right where Leonard thought he'd be, with the light from the setting sun so close to his knees that Leonard has to work much too hard to suppress the urge to rush over there and pull Jim over the back of the couch and away from imminent immolation. The remote to the blinds is in his hands, but he must be playing a game of chicken with himself because he doesn't close the blinds until the sunlight actually touches his knees and he starts to smoke.

"Goddammit, Jim," Leonard swears, finally urging himself into motion and crossing the room to collapse onto the couch not far from Jim. He drops his bag to the floor and takes the remote, triggering the blinds in the rest of the apartment. "Are you trying to kill yourself?"

(And God only knows why a vampire would move into a loft with the most goddamn west facing windows Leonard's ever seen in one place, but that's Jim Kirk for you.)

"I don't have a death wish, Bones," Jim says, wrapping his hand around Leonard's ankle, his thumb brushing against the protruding bones there.

"You sure, kid?" he asks, the nickname falling from his lips without thought. It doesn't matter that Jim is centuries older than he is; he still looks like some kind of wunderkind detective. "Isn't that why you want to be mortal again?"

"How can you think that?" Jim asks, craning his neck to look up at Leonard. "If I wanted to die, I'd die. I want to be human again because I want to _live_ again. You believe that, don't you?"

"Against my better judgement, yeah, I do," Leonard admits and doesn't in any way miss the feeling of Jim's hand on his ankle when the other man pushes himself to his feet. He doesn't have long to not-miss the feeling of Jim because Jim drops onto the couch practically on top of him.

"So what's the plan for tonight?" Jim asks, reaching across Leonard to snag his wine glass from the side table. Jim grimaces after taking a long pull from the glass; he's said before that cows' blood is a paltry substitute for human blood, but until he starts listening to Leonard and actively _trying_ to become human again, his distaste isn't something Leonard has sympathy for.

"We're going to do the same thing we do every night, Pinky," Leonard says, grabbing a hold of his bag and pulling out a protein shake. He holds it up in front of Jim's face and shakes it a little. "I want you to actually ingest some of it this time, too."

He can tell Jim's gearing himself up for a lewd comment, but he doesn't have time to get it out before his cell phone starts to ring and manages to vibrate itself right off the end table before Jim's able to lean across Leonard again and snatch it up.

Leonard grabs it from the floor and sees 'Spock calling' flashing on the screen as he hands it over, wondering what Jim's partner could possibly be calling about on his night off.

"This is Kirk," Jim answers, setting his wine glass on the floor. He listens for a second and then says, "Wait, Nyota, where's Spock?"

Leonard cocks his head, trying to hear the other side of the conversation. Jim, seeing this, pulls the phone away from his ear and puts it on speaker.

"--should have told you that we've been seeing each other, but he didn't know what you are or that you and I even know each other, and I wasn't going to risk you being exposed, so I made Spock promise not to say anything about me."

A little knot of worry starts to build in Leonard's stomach. The few times he's met Uhura, she's always been very eloquent and concise and this rush of words is so completely out of character that Leonard can't help but worry and wonder what's gone so wrong to make her babble.

"Nyota, _where's Spock_?" Jim asks again and in the space of the time it takes Leonard to blink, Jim's been and gone and come back, shoes on his previously bare feet and a jacket slung over his shoulder, his gun snug in its holster against his ribs. Leonard's on his feet a second later and following Jim out of the loft and down to Jim's car.

"It was Nero," Uhura says and that's apparently all the explanation Jim needs because he ends the call and tosses his phone onto the backseat of his car and is already peeling out of the garage and into the rapidly darkening twilight almost before Leonard's even in the car.

"Isn't Nero the one who brought you across?" Leonard asks, pulling on his seatbelt. Jim's immortal and drives like it and Leonard isn't a huge fan of becoming another MVA victim. "And Uhura?"

"Nero has many children," Jim says, taking a corner fast enough that Leonard could swear the car goes up on two wheels. "And he's never approved of our _fraternization_ with mortals."

"Let me guess: you're not supposed to get friendly with your food?" Leonard asks, making a grab for the oh-shit handle and holding on for dear life.

"Something like that," Jim says and then it's just the sound of tires against the pavement and the occasionally honking horn as Jim ignores every single traffic law ever.

"Where are we going?" Leonard finally asks when he can't take the silence anymore.

"Spock's dead and Nyota probably will be soon enough," Jim says evenly and Leonard knows that Jim is pushing aside his grief and anger in order to do what needs to be done to keep both himself and Leonard from meeting the same fate as their friends. "Nero doesn't leave loose ends, which means he'll be coming for you soon. He's tolerated you for this long because I'm his favorite and he'll forgive me many things, including my human friends, but if he's on a rampage, then no one's safe, not even me."

"There's no way in hell we're going to confront him," Leonard says, staring at Jim's profile while Jim very neatly avoids looking at him. "He'll kill us."

"I know, which is why _you_ aren't going to confront him."

"Oh, hell no. You are _not_ going up against Nero without me."

Jim ignores him and says, "Chekov should be able to get you a new identity whipped up fairly quickly and then I want you to take the first flight out of here and never look back. I'll find you if I can."

"No way," Leonard says, laying his hand over Jim's on the gear shift when he finally throws the car in park in front of Chekov's little hidey-hole. "Either we both go or we both stay, but I am not running away and leaving you alone with Nero."

"Bones, please, just _go_ ," Jim says and it's like a punch to the gut when he finally meets Leonard's eyes.

Leonard has known Jim for a while now. He's known Jim when he's drunk on a fresh kill, when he's grieving for the death of a friend, when he's sad and angry and playful and just plain happy, but he's never seen Jim desperate before. But that's what this is. He's desperate for Leonard to get out while he still can, for Leonard not to meet the same fate as him.

"Come with me," Leonard demands, his hand still gripping Jim's. "We can go together."

"I can't, Bones. He'll find me." Jim squeezes his hand so hard it hurts, but Leonard doesn't so much as flinch because if he does, he'll lose any chance of changing Jim's mind. "He's my father. He has always found me. He _will_ always find me."

"I'm not leaving if you're not," Leonard says, secure in the fact that he can outstubborn an eight hundred year old vampire any day. "Unless you knock me out and dump me on a plane, I'm not leaving and since you don't have the time to do that, I guess you're stuck with me."

Jim just sighs after a minute and drops Leonard's hand and puts the car back into drive. Leonard catches a glimpse of Chekov staring at them from a window as they drive away and he wonders how long it'll take for the news that they're not trying to run to get back to Nero.

It turns out that the vampire grapevine moves even faster than the PD grapevine because Nero's waiting for them when they get back to Jim's loft.

"Down!" Jim shouts and Leonard doesn't even think about it; he drops to the ground about half a second before a knife embeds itself in the wall near where his head had just been.

"It seems that I have been remiss as a parent," Nero says and Leonard watches from his spot on the floor as Nero paces around the loft like he owns it. "I've allowed you exceptional freedom these past years, but I now realize that you require a firmer touch. Friendship with mortals, James?"

"Better them than you," Jim says and Leonard almost doesn't recognize him. His eyes are glowing and his fangs are out, but that's nothing Leonard hasn't seen before. No, it's the expression on Jim's face, the utter contempt and anger and hint of fear, that has Leonard worried.

"Such insolence, my son," Nero says, eyes flashing yellow and then both he and Jim are moving and Leonard can't keep up. One second, they're smashing through the living room and then the kitchen and the next second, they're smashing through windows and the moon roof and Leonard covers his head with his arms, but still feels glass slicing into his skin. He'd try to hide, but his heart is doing its best to beat its way out of his chest and he knows that if Nero doesn't smell the blood on him, he'll hear his heart pounding and then it'll be game over anyway. So he huddles on the floor against the wall and tries not to imagine the kind of damage Jim and Nero are inflicting on each other.

He's not sure how long he stays like that before he hears slow and measured steps and _knows_ it's Nero walking towards him. He tilts his head back until he can meet Nero's eyes, which are dark again, and tries not to see the blood on his chin.

"This will go much easier on you if you don't struggle," Nero says, lifting Leonard and setting him on his feet. Leonard leans against the wall at his back, and doesn't try to run even though he knows Nero isn't going to kill him painlessly; it would be pointless to try and he may as well face his death like a man.

"He's dead, isn't he?" Leonard asks as Nero steps closer, leaving barely any space between their bodies. He doesn't shiver when Nero puts a hand on his chin and tilts his head to the side, exposing his neck, but it's a near thing.

"James has been disciplined," Nero says and it's not a yes or a no, but it's close enough that Leonard just gives up. There's no way he can do this, can fight off Nero without Jim, and they both know it. He's done.

It's over.

Nero noses Leonard's pulse point, inhaling deeply like a man about to bite into a feast and Leonard's eyes fall shut and he just hopes that it'll all be over soon.

The pain of the bite is excruciating and then Nero's latched his mouth around the wound and is _sucking_ and holy mother of god, it hurts worse than anything Leonard's ever felt before, but he still doesn't struggle. Struggling will just prolong it and that's not something he's interested in doing.

Nero pulls away just far enough to breathe into Leonard's ear, "So delicious," before he's back at Leonard's neck and it hurts less now and Leonard knows he's going into shock, that's he'll be dead in a matter of minutes, if not sooner.

Nero suddenly jerks away and Leonard gracelessly falls to the ground, his legs unable to support his weight. He's panting shallowly and can feel blood oozing out of the punctures on his neck with every beat of his heart and he thinks, _I'm about to die._

There's a noise above him, a wet thump against the ground, and he manages to drag his eyes open just far enough to see Nero on the ground a few feet away with what looks like the leg of Jim's coffee table protruding out of his chest, his eyes staring sightlessly at Leonard.

"Oh, god, Bones."

And then Jim's crouching in front of him, sitting him upright against the wall and Leonard watches as the punctures on Jim's neck knit together right then and there and even after the marks are gone, he just keeps staring and doesn't even notice when his vision goes completely out of focus.

"Bones!" Jim says, slapping at Leonard's face and Leonard manages to drag his eyes up to meet Jim's. He wants to say something to Jim, something he's been meaning to say to Jim, but he can't remember now what it was.

"Bones, c'mon, don't go giving up on me," Jim says and Leonard wonders why he sounds so desperate and scared. Jim's never desperate _or_ scared.

"Jim," Leonard manages to get out, so quietly that he can barely hear himself over the sound of his own pulse pounding in his ears.

"Shh, don't say anything," Jim says, his hands fluttering over Leonard's arms and chest, never staying in one spot for long. "Just don't say anything, okay?"

"Jim," Leonard breathes out, and the last thing he feels is Jim's mouth against his neck.

  


\------

  
He wakes up absolutely _ravenous_.

He struggles weakly against the hands that sit him upright against a wall, but whoever's holding him up is stronger than he is. "Here, drink this," he's told, and a cup is held to his lips and Leonard gulps down the contents as quickly as he can without choking.

"More," he demands when the cup is empty; another soon takes its place and this cycle is repeated a handful of times before Leonard is completely satiated and only then does he realize something.

He's not dead.

He _should_ be dead.

"What did you do to me?" he asks as Jim shifts away. Leonard already feels stronger and when he licks his lips, he tastes remnants of the blood he so recently ingested. Jim won't meet his eyes and Leonard repeats, "What did you do to me, Jim?"

"I did what I had to do," Jim says, his eyes on a spot over Leonard's left shoulder. "You were too far gone to save. I had to finish what Nero started." He's silent for a moment and then he says, "I'm not sorry, Bones." He finally meets Leonard's eyes. "I couldn't let you die."

"Because this is _so much better_ than being dead!" Leonard snaps, pushing himself to his feel and stumbling away from Jim. He gulps in deep lungfuls of air, trying to calm himself, before he remembers that he doesn't need to breathe anymore and then he's even more pissed than he was before.

He wheels around and is right up in Jim's face in the blink of an eye, finger jabbed into Jim's chest. "You turn me into what you've been trying to escape and you think I should be _grateful_ to you for that?"

"No, I think you should hate me for it," Jim says calmly and that stops Leonard short. "You have every right to be pissed, Bones, and to never forgive me, but if I hadn't done what I did, you wouldn't be around anymore to hate me, so I'm surprisingly okay with your lack of gratitude."

Leonard drops his hand to his side and takes a step back from Jim, unsure about what he's supposed to do now. If he's honest with himself, he'd been more than half expecting a fight and for Jim to give him a reason to walk away. This calm acceptance wasn't even in the realm of possibility for what Leonard had expected from Jim and it's managed to wrong-foot Leonard completely.

"I've lived eight hundred years, Bones," Jim says and Leonard can't help himself; he meets Jim's eyes and then he can't look away. "I've known more people than I can remember sometimes, but there's never been anyone I couldn't imagine going through eternity without. Until you."

"What are you saying, Jim?" Leonard asks. He doesn't remember moving, but he's suddenly so close to Jim that he can see the various shades of blue that make up his eyes.

"I'm saying that you might hate me and you might never forgive me, but I will never be sorry for what I did," Jim says, reaching up to cup Leonard's face in his hands. "How can I be sorry about saving the one I love?"

"Jim..." Leonard trails off, unsure about what exactly to say. It's not like he's surprised to hear Jim speak so plainly or even that he doesn't return Jim's feelings, but he can't exactly say that right now. After a long moment, he settles for the easiest thing to say. "I don't hate you, Jim."

He reaches up and puts his hands over Jim's, keeping the other man close, and leans forward until their foreheads are pressed together, the tips of their noses brushing. "This is going to take some getting used to, but I could never hate you, Jim," Leonard says.

"I'll leave if you want me to," Jim says, but he doesn't try to pull away. "I'll leave San Francisco completely and let you live your life. Chekov's always good for a new identity when it's time for you to move on, even if he did rat us out to Nero. I mean, it's not like he could help it; it's incredibly hard to lie to your father. But I'll make sure he gives you the vampire crash-course, gets you all the names you need in order to start over new anywhere in the world."

Jim finishes his rush of words and then they're left standing there in silence. Leonard thinks about his life up to this point, about his failed marriage and how until Jim had been wheeled into his morgue, he'd been moving aimlessly through life. He thinks about how his friendship with Jim had come so naturally, how he'd started thinking of Jim as more than a friend not too long after meeting him, how he'd begun to assume that Jim would always be around.

"If you go," he says after a long moment of silence, "I'll be forced to experiment on myself to see if it's possible to turn a vampire back into a human and that's not something I'm a big fan of. So how about you stay?"

"Just to be a guinea pig?" Jim asks and he sounds uncertain, like he might actually believe that's the only reason Leonard could think to keep him around.

"Well, not only," Leonard says and he can't help his smile when Jim shifts his hands and slips his fingers into Leonard's hair. Leonard's hands seem to move of their own accord to Jim's elbows.

"And what other duties would I be asked to perform?" Jim asks and Leonard can _hear_ the leer in Jim's voice, but Leonard doesn't rise to the bait like he knows Jim wants him to.

"Just stay," he says. "Please."

"How could I ever say no to you using the manners I always suspected you had but never saw you use?" Jim says and Leonard pinches Jim's arms.

"Jackass," he mutters. "I'm trying to be serious here."

"I know," Jim replies, "and it was weirding me out. Sorry."

"Well?" Leonard demands after a moment, his stomach jittery from nerves and from all the blood sitting in it. He tilts his head a little where their foreheads are still pressed together, nudging Jim's nose with his own in his impatience.

"Well what?" Jim asks and Leonard wants to smack him upside the head for being deliberately obtuse, but that's the reaction he's hoping for, Leonard just knows it, so when he speaks next, he speaks very calmly.

"Are you going to stay or are you going to exercise your martyr complex and run away?" he asks.

"I'll stay for as long as you want me to," Jim says.

And Leonard might not say _forever_ , but that doesn't stop the word from echoing in his head. "Okay," is what he says instead.

"Okay," Jim echoes, his fingers tightening in Leonard's hair. "I'm going to kiss you now and then I'm going to get rid of Nero's body and then I'm going to come back and maybe kiss you some more."

"You sure know how to show a guy a good time, don't you?" Leonard says. "Making out and burning bodies. How ever will you live up to this perfect evening?"

"Shut up, Bones," Jim says and then his lips are against Leonard's and Leonard finds himself not saying anything for quite a while, and, okay, it might not be perfect, but it's still pretty close. Perfect will come later, he's sure.

It's not like they don't have all the time in the world to get there.  



End file.
